| Author |
Message |
    
luv2cruise
Citizen
Username: Luv2cruise
Post Number: 144
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 6:37 pm: |     |
I think if you would just get rid of Strawberry and all of his personas, the whole Soapbox would calm down and there wouldn't be a need to divide it.
There's nothing like being on the ocean! |
Nohero
Citizen
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 2619
Registered: 10-1999
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 6:44 pm: | |
So, you've put the "Soapbox" at the bottom of the pile, and retitled the top thread as "Mostly Maplewood". Very clever, Ross boys, very clever. Innocents who just want to post about local issues will, naturally, be drawn to the top; meanwhile, the real addicts will scroll down to the free-for-all in the Soapbox.
Although, on further reflection, you may wish to consider a new topic: "Thunderdome". No rules. "Two men enter, one man leaves" and all that ... |
bobk
Citizen
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 4166
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 6:56 pm: | |
Glad the lads took my advice and built on it.  |
ML1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1433
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 7:25 pm: | |
It's not the occasional personal attacks that keep people away from Soapbox. It's the illogical, ill-informed, close minded, ridiculous arguments that pass as "debate" that turns people off.
In other words, it ain't the heat, it's the stupidity.
|
Jerseyfabulous
Citizen
Username: Jerseyfabulous
Post Number: 54
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 8:50 pm: | |
I have an idea. Why doesn't everyone relax a little. I was kidding about Dave and not attacking him, Greentree. Furthermore Dave does just fine by this board with advertising. He isn't doing this for charity and if you want to support him, support those who advertise here.
The problem is people take what is said here way to personally. Most issues on Soapbox are very explosive and I would hate to see them dealt with without passion. Why is it a bad thing? Are we in third grade? Who cares what other think? It is there opinion and people should be free to express it no matter what the response. |
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 1569
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 12:36 pm: | |
jerseyfabulous, I am very close to concluding that people don't know what a personal attack is. Essentially, some people think "You're an idiot" (or some other name) is equivalent to saying "I strongly disagree". I think it's possible to say both of those with passion. Therefore, it's possible to disagree passionately without personal attacks. But, as I say, people don't seem to know the difference.
As that anti-smoking guy said so eloquently, your right to swing your fist stops at my nose. Freedom to express should not hurt others.
Also, there are common expectations of what is offensive and what is not. Or I thought so. The problem is, we can't agree on common rules. So some people who do stuff that I thought we had learned to stop doing in third grade ends up with the boorish offender blaming the victim for being overly sensitive.
So when you say relax, sure, but what is relaxing? Do you mean the polite people should relax enough to let the boors insult them? I'd prefer if the boors relaxed and learned to be civil. But my hope appears to be naive, because some folks graduated from third grade when they should have been left back, for behavioral problems. (You'll get my reference if you've read a couple of threads in the Education section. Apologies if you haven't.)
Tom Reingold
There is nothing
|
ML1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1436
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:14 pm: | |
Let's face it, when some people are online they address others in ways they wouldn't dream of doing in person. If I invited a bunch of people over to my house for dinner and one of them constantly kept steering the conversation to divisive issues, or worse yet, started shouting vulgarisms, or addressed the other guests as "moron," "idiot," or "schmuck," I'd never invite that person back.
A good rule of thumb-- if you wouldn't say it to someone in person, don't type it online. Because we're not just a bunch of anonymous cyber jocks. We're neighbors -- and eventually everyone figures out who everyone else is. |
United Strawberry of America
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1668
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:20 pm: | |
oh believe me..I have no problem calling someone a "schmuck" to their face. As a matter of fact just last week I called a guy a "dick head" as well.
"We won't always have the strongest military"
--Howard Dean
"Most competent and qualified kindergarden teachers can tell you who the 5 kids are in his or her class likely to wind up in prison 15 - 20 years from now."
--Howard Dean
|
Kenney
Citizen
Username: Kenney
Post Number: 241
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:20 pm: | |
So it's settled; we are all going over to ML1s house for drinks.
Whoever doesn't get invited back can no longer post.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today..FDR..
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth...G.W.
Everyone wants a voice in human freedom. There's a fire burning inside of all us...L.W.
Dave Ross is the coolest!!(being banned sucks) |
shh
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 832
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:26 pm: | |
I just thought the unpostable, but stopped myself from posting it.
|
ML1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1437
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:48 pm: | |
OK, so I'm wrong. Disregard my last post.
|
Kenney
Citizen
Username: Kenney
Post Number: 243
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:50 pm: | |
Damn--I was looking for an excuse to drink.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today..FDR..
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth...G.W.
Everyone wants a voice in human freedom. There's a fire burning inside of all us...L.W.
Dave Ross is the coolest!!(being banned sucks) |
ML1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1438
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:51 pm: | |
Satan will be sleigh riding in Hades before I send out a blanket invite to all of MOL. |
United Strawberry of America
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1670
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 3:06 pm: | |
ML1
"I WANT YOU TO WANT ME!"
"We won't always have the strongest military"
--Howard Dean
"Most competent and qualified kindergarden teachers can tell you who the 5 kids are in his or her class likely to wind up in prison 15 - 20 years from now."
--Howard Dean
|
ML1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1439
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 3:50 pm: | |
straw,
the Dream Police will be delivering your invite. |
Sylad
Citizen
Username: Sylad
Post Number: 131
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, January 1, 2004 - 12:02 pm: | |
How about calling it "Speaker's Corner" |
Joan
Citizen
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 2321
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 1, 2004 - 1:24 pm: | |
If Soapbox regulars can't even be civil to each other on such a relatively neutral topic as whether the Soapbox should be divided into two different sections, what are the chances that we won't wind up with two "rock-um/sock-um sections if the proposed split is enacted. |
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 1608
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 1, 2004 - 3:54 pm: | |
Good point, Joan. I think the Virtual Cafe section is already the lighthearted counterpart to the Soapbox section.
Tom Reingold
There is nothing
|
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 840
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 1, 2004 - 9:35 pm: | |
A forum I posted to for many years devised an ingenious solution to the flaming incivility problem by establishing a thread called the Inferno. When a post crossed the line into personal attack--and that forum was far more liberal in this respect than MOL: calling someone an idiot was de rigeur, as was praying aloud that (s)he be raped by cossacks for speaking "ex sphinctero", etc.--the thread moderator moved the post to the Inferno.
If the object of the attack wished to respond, he or she could do so in the Inferno. If not, not; yet the flame post nevertheless ceased to be part of the larger discussion and its relocation thereby neutralized an escalation. By isolating a war, conversation could continue in the thread that had been interrupted by too much personal vitriol.
The system worked quite well, permitting both very free speech and a means of segregating oneself from a too-hot online environment (as it were). Of course, genuine threats were not tolerated at all by the forum administrators, and were grounds for permanent banning. But in the Inferno, posters could have at it rhetorically, as long as they didn't say things that could harm or invite harm to their ideological enemies in real life. |
tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 2024
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, January 2, 2004 - 5:54 am: | |
Ex sphinctero should be in italics. |
ajc
Citizen
Username: Ajc
Post Number: 2263
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Friday, January 2, 2004 - 6:44 am: | |
D, Iiabdfi, gft$. HNY |
Joan
Citizen
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 2324
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, January 2, 2004 - 5:21 pm: | |
J.Crohn:
The problem with the Inferno approach on this message board is that most of the "sparring partners" in Soapbox know each other in the bricks and mortar world. By having a section where posters could be encouraged to get really nasty to each other on line, we would be running the risk of having these posters literally come to blows the next time they meet.
A virtual community which overlays a bricks and mortar community needs mechanisms to curb the virtual verbal violence rather than accomodate it. |
anon
Citizen
Username: Anon
Post Number: 897
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 3, 2004 - 12:38 pm: | |
It appears that people are still using "Soapbox" rather than "Mostly Maplewood" to discuss local matters. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 842
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 4, 2004 - 9:58 pm: | |
I thought about that, Joan, but I would guess the risk of coming to blows IRL should be sufficient to constrain people.
An Inferno would probably be self-limiting.
Tjohn: "Ex sphinctero should be in italics."
Mea culpa. |
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